1) Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an improvement to a heal dissipating fin interlocking mechanism, specifically a plurality of aluminum or steel fins, wherein the upper and lower corners of each fin plate are formed into locking elements. It is the characteristic of this invention that the connecting mechanism is easy to assemble and relatively economical to manufacture.
2) Description of the Prior Art
The central processing unit (CPU) in a computer system generates enormous heat during its operation. The quality of its heat dissipating device affects the computers life expectancy and performances.
The conventional heat dissipating device comprising a metal (usually aluminum) heat dissipating section, wherein on the top thereof are many indentations and cylindrical body of radial fin pieces. The fins enable the metal cylindrical shape to gain a better count of heat dissipating surface areas. Nevertheless, the number of fins on the cylinders is limited by technical difficulties in the cutting, trimming and/or extrusion processes, it therefore limits the heat dissipating surface area and its effectiveness.
A second conventional heat dissipating device was thus invented; it provides mainly a copper frame housing, wherein a large number of continuous narrow, channel-shape fin pieces with bent top and bottom ends are welded to the copper frame housing to form a large number cooling fins installation thereby enabling a large total heat dissipating surfaces area. But in this way the bending processing of thin copper fin pieces and extensive welding procedures are still difficult and expensive. The heavier weight and higher cost of copper (versus aluminum) are the other reasons that this is not an ideal method. Said conventional device is shown in FIG. 5, where a number of copper fin pieces (30), in tall and narrow channel shape, are bent into three sections: a center fin (31), top (32) and bottom (33) fins. Top and bottom fins (32, 33) are folded back parallel to the center fin (31) direction at either ends into an extension plate (34). An outside end of extension plate (34) is again bent orthogonally into a clip piece (35). A perforation (36) on the center fin (31) is made on each of the corresponding positions of the clip pieces (35). When fin pieces (30) are aligned in a close stack formation each clip piece (35) protrudes into the corresponding perforation (36) of the adjacent center fin (31), the protrusion clip piece (35) will then fold into a locking position while the whole stack of fins constitutes a heat dissipating device. As illustrated in FIGS. 5 and 6, the top and bottom fins (32, 33) of adjacent fin pieces are not connected by any means, and are vulnerable to shear forces exerted from sideways. Unless the connections by locking positions are aligned with perfect precision, a slight sideway force may cause the clip pieces (35) to detach or becoming loose. The lack of a secured connection is a major deficiency of the invention. Also, the delicate alignment between the perforations (36) and the clip pieces (35) are both difficult to process and to assemble resulted in a second deficiency of the conventional invention.
The present invention is thus aimed to provide an improvement interlocking mechanism for the fin pieces type heat dissipating device that is both economical to manufacture and simple to assemble. It is mainly to assemble a plurality of aluminum or copper fin pieces, tall and narrow channel shape from the side view, the four corners of the fin piece are all formed into identical locking elements. When the fins are aligned in the same orientation, one hooked up to another at the locking elements. It is not only easy to assemble in large numbers; the locking elements are also to be processed by the economical sheet metal stamping and pressing methods. Due to the dense stacking of fin pieces, it is extremely effective as a heat dissipating device. Said invention is to be implemented as follow: To assemble a plurality of aluminum or copper fins in the same orientation, the fins are all bent at the lower center protrusions and formed into venting openings at several locations on the main center section. The four corners of the fin piece are formed into projecting locking elements, the element are provided with one or two xe2x80x9cclawxe2x80x9d at the end. The claws can fit into the corresponding perforation on the projecting locking elements; the bent segment of the claws can be bent flat once it passes through the perforation on the adjacent fin piece locking element, therefore forming a simple and secure connection. This connection can easily be repeated for each of the corners on the fin piece in easy maneuverings to produce a sizable assembly that has much better shear-force resistance capacity.